Music / Reviews
Review: Ozlem Pitlak and Ben Jenkins, St Stephen’s Church – ‘A masterful blend of technical brilliance and emotional insight’
The lunchtime concerts at St Stephen’s Church in the city centre have become a warm and intimate performance space, even in winter months.
The latest concert featured two local musicians known for defying genre boundaries in their efforts to bring musical gems to wider audiences: Ozlem Pitlak and Ben Jenkins.
Both are well known figures on the Bristol music scene. Jenkins is the charismatic director of the Bristol Reggae Orchestra, while Pitlak, a classical cellist, has performed with the Bristol Dovetail Orchestra and the Cotham Club and collaborated with many local musicians, most recently Anatolian folk musician Ozcan Ates.
Pitlak has recently embarked on her soloist projects, most notably the Bach cello suites, where she completed the first two suites to much acclaim. The Bach project marks a significant milestone for Pitlak to come out of the shadow of being an orchestral player to express her artistry freely and expressively.
Pitlak showcased both technical brilliance and emotional insight with her playing – photo: Milan Perera
With Jenkins on piano and Pitlak on cello, the duo led the audience on a tour ranging from gentle, heartwarming pieces to technically taxing works by Casals and Shostakovich, alongside traditional Turkish folk songs and familiar Christmas tunes.
The concert opened with an arrangement of Somewhere Over the Rainbow by Arlen and Harburg, which neatly segued into Cole Porter’s evergreen Begin the Beguine, both delivered with poise and sensitivity by the duo.
In stark contrast, Pitlak turned to her Turkish roots with a rendition of the folk song Yiğidim Aslanım by Zülfü Livaneli, a tribute to an honourable hero, celebrated as a yigit, a man of courage, and an aslan, a lion.
The cello’s mournful, expressive line conveyed affection for a figure said to be “resting here”, suggesting a life lost in a noble cause. Pitlak shaped the piece with empathy coupled by technical brilliance, intelligently supported by Jenkins on the piano.
Pablo Casals, widely regarded as one of the most influential cellists of the 20th century, was honoured with a moving rendition of Song of the Birds, a traditional Catalan Christmas lullaby.
Both Jenkins and Pitlak known for defying genre boundaries in their efforts to bring musical gems to wider audiences – photo: Jay Didcott
The piece, which celebrates nature’s joy at the birth of Christ, became known internationally through Casals’ interpretation. Following his exile in 1939, Casals opened every concert with the song, turning it into a powerful symbol of peace, memory and quiet resistance.
Another highlight was George Gershwin and Jascha Heifetz’s Prelude No. 2, transposed from piano and violin to piano and cello. Marked with the tempo “Andante con moto e poco rubato”, loosely translated as “walking with motion and slight freedom”, the piece demands careful control of tempo alongside a technically demanding melodic line. Didn’t Pitlak deliver the theme with poise and ease, supported by Jenkins’ sensitive and measured accompaniment?
The showstopper of the concert was undoubtedly the second movement of Dmitri Shostakovich’s Cello Sonata, a dazzling showcase of Pitlak’s technical brilliance. Rapid arpeggios, lightning fingerwork and sharply placed pizzicato passages were executed with remarkable control and an almost effortless confidence, drawing a roaring applause from the audience.
Pitlak, who studied western classical music at two conservatoires in Ankara for ten years, draws on her strong classical grounding to explore and reinterpret traditional music idioms from Turkey and Anatolia.
Ozlem Pitlak and Ben Jenkins took the audience on a musical tour de force – photo: Milan Perera
The programme was interspersed with musical gems from bards and travelling troubadours as highlighted with Umut and Pervane. Pitlak’s tone throughout the concert was warm and luminous, much like the sunshine of her native Turkey, without ever veering into self indulgence. The programme was fittingly rounded off with a heartfelt rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
Main photo: Jay Didcott
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